Top

A top is a toy designed to be spun rapidly on the ground, the motion of which causes it to remain precisely balanced on its tip because of inertia. Such toys have existed since antiquity. Traditionally tops were constructed of wood, sometimes with an iron tip, and would be set in motion by aid of a string or rope coiled around its axis which, when pulled quickly, caused a rapid unwinding that would set the top in motion. Today they are often built of plastic, and modern materials and manufacturing processes allow tops to be constructed with such precise balance that they can be set in motion by a simple twist of the fingers and twirl of the wrist without need for string or rope.

Characteristics

The motion of a top is produced in the most simple forms by twirling the stem using the fingers. More sophisticated tops are spun by holding the axis firmly while pulling a string or twisting a stick or pushing an auger. In the kinds with an auger, an internal weight rotates, producing an overall circular motion. Some tops can be thrown, while firmly grasping a string that had been tightly wound around the stem, and the centrifugal force generated by the unwinding motion of the string will set them spinning upon touching ground.

Top (clothing)

A top is clothing that covers at least the chest, but which usually covers most of the upper human body between the neck and the waistline. The bottom of tops can be as short as mid-torso, or as long as mid-thigh. Men's tops are generally paired with pants, and women's with pants or skirts. Common types of tops are t-shirts, blouses and shirts.

Design

The neckline is the highest line of the top, and may be as high as a head-covering hood, or as low as the waistline or bottom hem of the top. A top may be worn loose or tight around the bust or waist, and may have sleeves or shoulder straps, spaghetti straps (noodle straps), or may be strapless. The back may be covered or bare. Tops may have straps around the waist or neck, or over the shoulders.

N.B. Some authors use the name Top for the category with topological manifolds as objects and continuous maps as morphisms.

As a concrete category

Like many categories, the category Top is a concrete category (also known as a construct), meaning its objects are sets with additional structure (i.e. topologies) and its morphisms are functions preserving this structure. There is a natural forgetful functor

to the category of sets which assigns to each topological space the underlying set and to each continuous map the underlying function.

Talent (comics)

Plot

A college professor, Nicholas Dane is the only survivor of flight 654, a plane that crashes into the sea and kills the crew and 148 other passengers. Unable to account for how he was able to survive underwater for 12 hours, he is suspected of involvement in the incident. Fleeing as a fugitive, Dane find that he now possesses the talents of the other passengers and crew and must evade members of a shadowy conspiracy out to get him.

Notes

References

Talent (measurement)

The talent (Latin:talentum, from Ancient Greek: τάλαντον, talanton 'scale, balance, sum') was one of several ancient units of mass, a commercial weight, as well as corresponding units of value equivalent to these masses of a precious metal. The talent of gold was known to Homer, who described how Achilles gave a half-talent of gold to Antilochus as a prize. It was approximately the mass of water required to fill an amphora. A Greek, or Attic talent, was 26 kilograms (57lb), a Roman talent was 32.3 kilograms (71lb), an Egyptian talent was 27 kilograms (60lb), and a Babylonian talent was 30.3 kilograms (67lb).Ancient Israel, and other Levantine countries, adopted the Babylonian talent, but later revised the mass. The heavy common talent, used in New Testament times, was 58.9 kilograms (130lb).

An Attic talent of silver was the value of nine man-years of skilled work. During the Peloponnesian War, an Attic talent was the amount of silver that would pay a month's wages of a trireme crew of 200 men.Hellenisticmercenaries were commonly paid one drachma per day of military service. There were 6,000 drachmae in an Attic talent.

Talent (play)

Talent is a play written by Victoria Wood, first performed in 1978. It centres on two friends, one of whom is about to enter a talent contest in a run down nightclub. Commissioned for the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, it received much acclaim and transferred to a London run in 1979. That same year a television adaptation was broadcast. It was the first time Victoria Wood and Julie Walters appeared together on TV.

A mixture of dialogue and music, one of its tunes inspired The Smiths song Rusholme Ruffians. The script was published by Methuen in 1988, along with another play by Wood, Good Fun.

The initial commission was for Wood to co-write, with fellow revue writer Ron Hutchinson, a play about strippers. According to Wood "The Bush Theatre was over a pub which had strippers and Ron and I spent twenty minutes one evening watching a large girl in boots walk out of the ladies' lavatory, take off her clothes (she kept on her boots, the floor was filthy) and walk back into the ladies lavatory again. Then Ron said he was too busy to do this play, and David asked me if I would do it on my own. Not knowing anything about the world of the stripper and having all the investigative zeal of a defrosting beefburger, I decided to try and write up an idea of my own. The idea came quite easily, though typing it out was quite difficult."